More than two decades of research have established that breast milk is one of the most valuable contributors to infant health. Breast-fed infants have lower rates of hospital admissions, ear infections, diarrhea, rashes, allergies, and other medical problems than bottle-fed babies. Further, increased breast-feeding rates save consumers money, spent both on infant formula and in health-care.
The benefits of breast feeding are well recognized. The primary benefit is nutritional. Human milk contains just the right amount of fatty acids, lactose, water, and amino acids for human digestion, brain development, and growth. Further, breast-fed infants have fewer illnesses because human milk transfers to the infant a mother's antibodies to disease. About 80 percent of the cells in breast milk are macrophages, cells that kill bacteria, fungi and viruses. Breast-fed infants are thus protected, in varying degrees, from a number of illnesses, including pneumonia, botulism, bronchitis, staphylococcal infections, influenza, ear infections, and German measles. Furthermore, mothers produce antibodies to whatever disease is present in their environment, making their milk custom-designed to fight the diseases their infants are exposed to as well.
Lack of knowledge as to how much an infant consumed during a feeding session has led to the developments of devices and techniques for determining breast-milk consumption. One well known method of determining milk volume during breast feeding involves measurement of an infant's weight before and after feeding. However, this method is inconvenient as the infant needs to be naked and still during measurement, does not provide real-time value for how much the infant consumed and typically requires very expensive accurate digital weight scales.
A device for measuring milk volume during breast feeding is described in each of U.S. Pat. No. 5,827,191 and in WO01/54488. The device comprises a flexible cap-shaped cover including an outer surface, an inner surface and a passage extending between the inner and outer surface. The cap is adapted for mounting on a woman's breast such that the inner surface faces the breast and the passage faces the nipple. The device also includes a micro measurement volume sensor, located in front of the passage between the inner surface of the cap and the woman's nipple for measuring the milk volume entering the passage.